An operating system may use a variety of sources to boot up in various environments. Networked systems allow a computing device to receive start up information from a network server. A Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) defines a firmware interface which is the first code run by a computing device when powered on. The BIOS loads the operating system, identifies, tests and initializes system devices. The BIOS prepares the computing device to operate in a known state so that software may be loaded, executed and given control of the device.
The state of a computing device is defined by a system image and is used by the BIOS. A computer system boots up by executing BIOS instructions that cause an operating system loader program to be loaded from a disk drive into system memory. The BIOS may then cause the computer system to execute the loader program that, in turn, causes the computer system to load portions of the operating system into the system memory. Subsequently, the operating system may execute one or more program(s) to initialize and start execution of the operating system.
Many computing devices are wireless devices that include a wireless adapter card for communicating within a wireless network. Wireless adapter cards may not have sufficient memory storage to store operating code and driver codes used to support wireless networked functionality. Thus what is needed are computing devices and methods that provide for wireless remote boot in a networked environment.